


Time, and Time Again

by Confused_Host



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, The major character death isn't actually a death but it can seem like it so, hollowed grounds au, in the hollowed grounds au wl is evil so watch out for that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:40:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28574658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Confused_Host/pseuds/Confused_Host
Summary: Ze'mer has seen the fall of a kingdom, plucked of its petals and stem thrown to the winds. Now she lives in a kingdom, rooted down by the hand of the queen, and she feels she is safe.No one expects the tree to uproot herself after all.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16
Collections: Tangled Roots





	Time, and Time Again

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr as sonft-quirrel! 
> 
> Reminder that this is part of the Hollowed Ground Au in which White Lady is evil. Ask us about it on tumblr @aggieio-chaos!! 
> 
> Tell me if you see a typo!

The first time it happened, Ze’mer had been young. She’d only just had her first molt, and her mother was still teaching her how to arrange the flowers they kept in the shop. 

  
  


On the first day, they worked with roses. Thorns that pricked her little fingers and made her mother carefully position her small, clumsy hands to avoid them. She grinned up at the man who’d ordered them, who said he wanted to gift them to his wife. He’d pat her head and thanked her for the batch. 

Two days later, he went missing. 

Four days after that, his body was found, looking as though it had been sucked of all it’s life.

  
  


On the second day, Ze’mer avoided roses. She asked her mother what flowers meant good luck and plucked them from the gardens herself.  _ Peonies, orchids, lilies.  _ She placed them carefully in a bouquet and whispered her love to a rose chafer behind the bread crumb bakery. They whispered to meet again in three days. 

In three days, she didn’t show up.

In three more she was found dead, looking as though she’d been drained of her life. ( _ Privately, Ze’mer thought she, the one left alive, might have been drained of all the love she’d held. _ )

On the third day, Ze’mer stayed away from roses, peonies, orchids, and lilies. Her mother told her to get chrysanthemums from the field, and she did, holding them to her chest on the way home. She handed one to the boy who wanted a pet and the bug that had just gotten better and to the centipede in the cave not too far off. 

The boy disappeared the next day, the bug following two days after. 

In four days they, two strangers, were found together, shriveled up and drained. ( _ Ze’mer later passed by the cave and was horrified to find that the centipede was also dead. She gathered it’s belongings and arranged the few that she knew were precious to them around it’s body. The rest she brought home to mourn, alone. _ )

Again, with daisies, again, with carnations, again with sunflowers, and again, and again and again. 

She took a break for a week after the twenty-sixth death. During that week, there was news of eight more deaths, and despite her growing fear, she let herself feel relief from the guilt of it possibly being  _ her _ that was killing them all. 

She went back to work just in time to greet the queen at her doorstep. This was a surprise, as the queen almost never left her place in the palace. The root ducked her head low to fit under the doorway and Ze’mer shook her head. 

“My queen, please, I can meet you out there!” Ze’mer stepped out and looked up, up at the tree, meeting her eyes. ( _ Years later, her mental picture of the queen would be fuzzy, dulled by blocking out the trauma of so many deaths in the time surrounding the meeting. Now though, _ ) The queen was a blinding white, bright and nearly glowing, with a crown of branches sprouting from her head. She wore a matching white kimono, gold weaving stitched into the sleeves. Roots uplifted the soil beneath her, and Ze’mer avoided them politely. 

The queen bowed her head. “I’d heard that you are rather good at flower arrangements. Though I’m not quite looking for an arrangement, I wonder if you’re willing to pick a certain type of flower for me?” She shifted, the gold on her sleeves glinting in the light. 

Ze’mer was nodded once, sharply. “Of course, my lady! What do you need?” 

The root smiled. “Wisteria.”

Ze’mer furrowed her brows. Wisteria were an invasive species, and as such, they’d been cut out of the garden and the fields surrounding the town. She’d have to search far to find  _ any _ . She refused to voice this though, instead asking, “And how large of an order are you looking for?”

“As large as you can make it,” The lady said, easily, as if she wasn’t asking Ze’mer to leave for a week and a half in hopes of finding what she wanted. The smaller bug agreed anyway. “Wonderful!” The queen exclaimed. “I’ll come back for them in a month, no rush!” 

Ze’mer was quiet for a moment, then slipped back into the shop to pack. It would be a while more before she was open for customers. 

Three weeks passed before she’d gathered enough to go back home, and by then, she’d found that she was too late for  _ something. _ Walking into town was as it always was, though quieter. Darker. 

_ Something was wrong. _

It became evident when she turned the street and was met with the sight for four bodies, shriveled like all the others. She dropped the flowers as she ran down the street to the flowershop, looking up at it’s cracked walls, holes of varying sizes littering the building. Ze’mer rushed in, scanning the room for any sign of her mother, finding nothing but wreckage. A single bouquet of delicate flowers was placed on the ground, undisturbed. 

Ze’mer picked it up carefully, and turned to the nail that lay under the rubble. It had been her mother’s and now that she was - she clutched the bouquet tight - dead, it would be hers. 

__

As it was meant to be. 

__

She picked up the nail and walked away, away from the town where she grew, away from the bodies of people she’d known, away from the life she’d had.

__

* * *

__

The second time it happened was years later, memories repressed, and a new kingdom. Somehow, despite all of this, Ze’mer was still left feeling like the same small bug she’d been the before. Her queen, the white lady, had asked to see her, and to tell no one. She’d obliged, as one was to do when their queen asked them of something. 

“My lady?” She’d asked, bowing to her queen. “What do you need?”

The queen smiled. “Your service, my knight.” 

Ze’mer paused, brows furrowed. She opened her mouth to voice her confusion, but roots shot from the ground to gather her up. They  _ squeezed _ and the knight choked, gasping for air. 

“You are my  _ husband’s _ knight. But I think I’d prefer you to bow to  _ me alone _ .” She brought Ze’mer close, touching a branch to the back of her head. “You are  _ mine _ , knight, and you will stay that way.” 

Something latched onto the bug’s skull and dug in, sending a shooting pain through her body. She coughed up what would have been a scream, had she been able to. 

Ze’mer looked up at the root, eyes catching on the flowers draped over her branches. 

__

_ Ah _ . _Wisteria._

The queen had asked for wisteria. 

__

Ze’mer thought of the home she’d had, and corpses she’d left and hoped that her love would be safe. That Hallownest would be safe. That she would not loose another home.

_ A delicate flower fell to the floor and ripped to pieces. _


End file.
